Digital Voices of the Future: Children's visions of future UK treescapes revealed through gaming

未来的数字之声：通过游戏揭示孩子们对未来英国树景的愿景

• 批准号: NE/Y004159/1
• 负责人: Simon Carr
• 金额: $ 10.45万
• 依托单位: University of Cumbria
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FY004159%2F1
• 关键词: Digital; Voices; Future; Children; visions

The future of UK treescapes belongs to the children and young people of today: they will witness and judge the long-term legacy of the UK Treescapes programme. Yet, interdisciplinary research that explores their engagement with treescapes temporally and spatially remains rare. Voices of the Future (VoF: NE/V021370/1) has co-produced research seeking to understand and engage children with valuing treescapes in a meaningful, hopeful manner. Even from their early years, childrens' understanding of the form and function of treescapes has been found to be nuanced and sophisticated and is usually framed within the challenges associated with observed and predicted climate change. VoF is generating research impact within educational and environmental policy and practice at local, regional and national levels. However, the impact of VoF needs scaling-up with the most important stakeholders, the children themselves. This knowledge exchange proposal seeks to address this gap to amplify the reach to a potential global audience of millions through different gaming environments.Every child experiences treescapes differently, but what might this mean for their imaginings and world-making? Is it possible for an online environment to be the dreaming, thinking, sharing and making space for children to predict and model the different treescapes of their futures? Can we use online environments as a space to democratise knowledge exchange, both amplifying and empowering the voices of children in the planning and planting of real UK Treescapes?The project applies key findings of VoF to co-produce and share game environments enabling children to visualise and explore what future treescapes could look like as a response to different choices made within their lifetimes. By simulating existing and new treescapes within real-world contexts, we can apply new knowledge of carbon storage and how children understand treescapes arising from VoF into game environments. This will afford children opportunities to envisage the worlds they would like to inhabit in symbiosis with their treescapes and experience a simulation of futures that are otherwise challenging to imagine, and even harder to place themselves within.The project centres on 7 encounters between children (8-13 years) at 2 schools within The Mersey Forest locale (Parklands Primary School, Ellesmere Port Catholic High School) and the project team to co-design and develop games using two platforms: Roblox & Unity. Each encounter comprises 2 days (1 day at each school), with each day involving two 60-90 minute interactive co-design and production workshops, each of ~30 children. This will engage ~120 children in game design and development. Between encounters, the project team will compile and incorporate the resources developed in each workshop into development of assets, mechanics and narratives within the two game environments. The Mersey Forest community woodland will host an event beyond the end of the project to link game development with real-world community tree planting.The outputs of the project will comprise immersive (Unity) and interactive (Roblox) online games enabling users to develop, visualise & share treescapes in their own real world and imagined settings. Modelling and simulating the outcome of tree planting and management in these environments will visualise how treescapes may look in the future, and can visualise and quantify the environmental (e.g. carbon sequestration, microclimate, biodiversity) socio-economic and cultural benefits provided by treescapes. These games offer potentially global scaling (Roblox has ~145 million monthly users, mainly children) of knowledge-exchange opportunities. The case example working with The Mersey Forest will evaluate how playful approaches and gaming can offer a powerful mechanism to incorporate the voice of children into the planning of treescapes and woodlands, through input to the 2025 revision of The Mersey Forest Plan

英国脱逃计划的未来属于当今的儿童和年轻人：他们将见证和评判英国脱逃计划的长期遗产。然而，探索它们在时间和空间上与树逃逸接触的跨学科研究仍然很少见。《未来之声》(VOF：NE/V021370/1)联合开展了一项研究，试图以有意义和充满希望的方式理解和让儿童参与评价树形逃生。甚至从他们的幼年起，孩子们对树枝逃逸的形式和功能的理解就被发现是细微的和复杂的，通常被限制在与观察和预测的气候变化相关的挑战中。VOF正在地方、区域和国家各级的教育和环境政策和实践中产生研究影响。然而，VOF的影响需要与最重要的利益攸关方--儿童本身--扩大规模。这项知识交流建议旨在解决这一差距，通过不同的游戏环境扩大对全球数百万潜在受众的影响。每个孩子的体验都不同，但这对他们的想象力和创造世界意味着什么？在线环境有没有可能成为孩子们做梦、思考、分享和创造空间的场所，让他们预测和模拟他们未来的不同未来？我们能否利用网络环境作为知识交流的民主化空间，既放大并增强儿童在规划和种植真实英国树逃脱时的声音？该项目应用VOF的关键发现来共同制作和分享游戏环境，使孩子们能够想象和探索未来的树逃脱会是什么样子，作为对他们一生中做出的不同选择的回应。通过在现实世界中模拟现有的和新的树形逃逸，我们可以将碳储存的新知识以及儿童如何理解由VOF产生的树形逃逸应用到游戏环境中。这将使孩子们有机会想象他们希望与树木逃生共生的世界，并体验模拟未来，否则这些未来是难以想象的，甚至更难置身其中。该项目以默西森林地区2所学校(公园小学、埃尔斯米尔港天主教高中)的儿童(8-13岁)和项目团队使用两个平台共同设计和开发游戏的7次遭遇为中心。每一次会面包括两天(每所学校一天)，每天包括两个60-90分钟的互动共同设计和制作研讨会，每个研讨会有大约30名儿童。这将使大约120名儿童参与游戏设计和开发。在两次会面之间，项目团队将汇编每个研讨会中开发的资源，并将其纳入两个游戏环境中的资产、机械和叙事的开发中。默西森林社区林地将在项目结束后举办一场活动，将游戏开发与现实世界社区植树联系起来。该项目的成果将包括沉浸式(Unity)和交互式(Roblox)在线游戏，使用户能够在他们自己的现实世界和想象的环境中开发、可视化和分享树木逃生。对在这些环境中植树和管理的结果进行建模和模拟，可以直观地看到树木逃逸在未来可能是什么样子，并可以可视化和量化树木逃逸所带来的环境(例如碳固存、小气候、生物多样性)、社会经济和文化好处。这些游戏提供了潜在的全球范围内的知识交流机会(Roblox每月约有1.45亿用户，主要是儿童)。与默西森林合作的案例将评估有趣的方法和游戏如何提供一种强大的机制，通过为2025年修订的默西森林计划提供投入，将儿童的声音纳入到栈道和林地的规划中